The major political parties are poor. Their poverty is clearly indicated by the fact that all of them, without exception, are using the language of default option. We hear sentences beginning with ‘at least,’ as in ‘at least now t

An intensive, hard-fought campaign ended at midnight yesterday. After a two-day moratorium, the four major parties go before the court of the sovereign people on Saturday for their verdict on who should control 341 local councils in all parts of th

Election platforms can turn men into super heroes; they can turn politicians into inspiring leaders; they can drive audiences into enraged mobs; they can also turn themselves into caricatures of comical proportions, from which empty rhetoric might

Political parties - carry no credible second strings or alternate leadership –are calibrated according to the leaders’ needs. The problem lies in getting voters to walk a distance to a booth to vote for a dowdy politician.?

Political parties contesting Saturday’s local government elections will have to end their campaigning at midnight today marking what the Elections Commission describes as the “period of silence”. It is worth noting that the electi

Is honesty really a virtue and does anybody want to hear the truth? It makes no sense to vote for  and work for a system that makes the selfish rich and the selfless poor 

Now the ground reality in Sri Lanka in terms of gender equality is a scenario like this.   Women can enter prestigious professions such as law, medicine, engineering, civil service, etc. without any obstruction; in fact the number of

The Maldives is an archipelago of hundreds of tiny, idyllic islands, many of which are luxury resorts attracting Westerners in search of a quiet retreat. But the quietness of the country appears to be restricted to its physical features.   

The primary thrust among global commentators last week was on dissecting and analysing the State of the Union address delivered by President Donald Trump. He tried to reach out to an American public exhausted by divisive politics and a waning faith i

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has reportedly urged President Maithripala Sirisena and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to tone down mutual hostility in the election campaign.   

With four major political parties going into the last two days of their unprecedented battle for the control of 341 local councils, Parliament would today hold a special session to debate a vital issue. The much awaited debate will be on the lengthy

A few days back, two Sri Lankan students studying in China returned home for holidays. During their transit in Kuala Lumpur they bumped into an elderly...

With Independent Sri Lanka having reached the age of 70, it cannot reconstruct itself without self-criticism. As we live under the shadow of the twin forces of Sinhala Buddhist...

The upcoming polls have opened doors for a diverse group of individuals including professionals, youngsters and more females to contest. Representing the United National Freedom...

Dhanushka Ramanayake, an academically qualified young professional is contesting for the Maharagama Urban Council from the United National Party....

The Office on Missing Persons (OMP) is one of the four mechanisms that the government promised in its ‘comprehensive approach to dealing with the past’. While the OMP is the only mechanism on which any formal progress has been made in the

Yesterday was World Wetlands Day and Sri Lanka, as we celebrate Independence, needs to give priority to this issue with this year’s theme being Wetlands for a Sustainable Urban Future. 

A whole week was spent or wasted for a debate on the Parliamentary debate over the reports of Presidential Commissions on the controversial Central Bank bond tractions between 2015 and 2016 and serious frauds committed during the previous regime.

The tension between the United States and Turkey strangely did not find mention in Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday, though the events on the ground are as worrisome as the North Korean missile-and-nuclear issue is.

Amidst the Government’s Independence Day events and excitement over next week’s elections to341 local councils, quiet and gradual steps in bringing about a better standard of governance have gone almost unnoticed during the previous month

This Blue-Green coalition government will go on stage at Galle Face Green this Sunday to celebrate 70 years of Independence from British colonial rule. 

The idea that Sinhala and Tamil shall both be given official language status after independence was agreed among political leaders until the eruption of language controversy in 1955.

It’s now 70 decades since the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’ broke free from the bondage of colonial rule. Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), which was subjected to one of the longest periods of foreign occupation from 1505 to 1948, had a v

In 2002 when the United National Party (UNP) was briefly in power there were plans to celebrate, yes ‘celebrate’ (!) the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in the island. It was as though that party had no notion whatsoever about

As we begin February today, what we remember most is Independence Day on February 4 and it is more significant this year because it is the 70th anniversary. In addition we are amid an intensified campaign for the February 10 elections to 341 Municipa

Sri Lanka’s forest cover is estimated to be about 27% of the land area. It was three times this extent a few decades back. The Forest Department was one of the first to be established by the British and is a hundred years old. The dwindling f

With another election on the cards, the daggers are drawn with accusations going to and fro, hither and thither. The former ruler who suffers from selective amnesia about his past record is at it again, playing to the gallery, waving both arms and sh

The UNP Establishment has just raised the stakes. It is proclaiming from every platform that if it wins the upcoming local government election it will form a UNP government perhaps with TNA and SLMC participation,

Through consultation, compromise and consensus – key factors for democracy and public accountability – Speaker Karu Jayasuriya announced yesterday that a special session of Parliament would be held on February 6 to hold the widely-await

The events of 2015 set out a path of reform to strengthen our democracy and institutions, entrench respect for human rights and the rule of law. We saw pledges made to take the essential steps needed to learn from our past such that we could ensure